From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@eff.org>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 05:33:32 PST
To: jkreznar@ininx.com (John E. Kreznar)
Subject: Re: Privacy, Property, Cryptography (long)
In-Reply-To: <9311110628.AA17830@ininx>
Message-ID: <199311111329.AA29910@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 
John Kreznar writes:

> Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that the "right to be left alone is
> the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."[1]
> 
> [1] Quoted in ACLU Briefing Paper Number 5, "Drug Testing in the Workplace",
> published by the Department of Public Education, American Civil Liberties Union,
> 132 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036, (212) 944-9800.

This quotation needs to be debugged a little bit. The actual quotation
reads as follows: 

"They [the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights] conferred,
as against the government, the right to be let alone--the most
comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."

Olmstead v. United States, 227 U.S. 438, 478 (1928).

(Note in particular that it's "let," not "left.")



--Mike